So… about the metaverse

Meta unveiled the Quest Pro, its latest productivity-focused VR headset, at an event last week. At the same event, CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled metaverse-focused partnerships with Microsoft and NBCUniversal.

The first aims to bring gaming and Office 365 to Horizon Worlds, best described as Meta’s manifestation of the metaverse, and the second promises to bring content (i.e., as part of the deal, Peacock will be available on Quest headsets).

But in spite of this progress, one major problem remains: people aren’t really using Horizon Worlds (including the project’s development team). And the ones who are, aren’t sticking, the WSJ reports.

• Meta set an initial goal of reaching 500,000 monthly active users by the end of this year, a figure it recently revised down to 280,000. The current tally is less than 200,000.
• Most Horizon visitors don’t return to the app after the first month. Only 9% of worlds built by creators are ever visited by at least 50 people, while most are never visited at all.
• More than half of Quest headsets aren’t in use six months after purchase.

👥🥽 Zoom out: Meta isn’t alone in its adoption struggles. Metaverse platforms Decentraland and the Sandbox, both with market caps north of $1.2 billion, have 379 and 616 daily active users, respectively.

+Yes, but: Patience is a virtue – and a necessary one, when we’re talking about a nascent industry and new technologies. “We’re trying to land on the moon, and people are complaining that the coffee machine’s not working,” per Rolf Illenberger, CEO of VRdirect, a virtual-reality software company, in a recent interview.